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Friday, July 27, 2012

Welcome to Diabetes Island...

This Island is not fantastical in anyway, nor are the seats made of a "rich corinthian leather".

This island is a small rolling island in our kitchen that has been renamed "Diabetes Island" and now accounts for a large part of our counter space."Diabetes Island" is the home base of sorts. That's where we now start our day, and that's where we now end each day. This is where the incoherent middle of the night parent conferences and support meetings generally wind up. "Diabetes Island" is where all the craziness of T1-D happens.

This is where you'll find the Humolog(tm) which is the fast acting insulin. This is stored in a Bambi mug. Why Bambi? Well, because deer are fast, of course.

Next to Bambi is the (L)ittle Mermaid mug. The "L" word...Lantus(tm). Lantus(tm) is the (L)ong acting insulin that is given once a day in a (L)ower extremity (L)ike the (L)eg.

We have a unicorn mug full of 30 gauge syringes (You just haven't lived until you've stood down the CVS pharmacist because the syringes you were given don't have half unit marks). Then there is a Snoopy mug full of caps for the quick pen syringes. These only use whole units. We also have exposed and safety needle caps. Then there is the alcohol swabs and the ever-present biohazard home sharps container.

There's a cute TrapperKeeper(tm) with kittens on it. That's right a TrapperKeeper(tm) with kittens on it. This holds our daily log sheets and all the T1-D reference material we've accumulated.

A calculator for counting carbs and figuring dosages.

Test kit with Glucometer, test strips, and finger pricker. "Diabetes Island" is where Bella sits to "check a guy". And of course the endless collection of paper towels spotted with blood.

This photo of diabetes island was not set up or staged in any way. Sadly, this is how it exists in nature.

And then there is the notebook...

Surprisingly Lil' Hugs are a good low carb juice drink that Bella can have between meals and they don't effect the BG#levels much...

Everything Bella has eaten or drank for the past month is written down. We figure the carbs and then balance with insulin. Usually 1 unit for every 20g of carbs, except after lunch it's 1/30. Above is a sample from dinner through lunch the next day. This one includes 11 Blood Glucose checks in the 21 hour period. 5 injections of 2 kinds of insulin. (How many shots did you get today?) Oh, and there is another blood check for Ketones in the blood because we had a 367 BG# overnight. Ketones are another blog post.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour of "Diabetes Island". This is yet another way our lives have been changed by T1-D.

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The What For...

This blog has been set up to follow the process of acquiring a Diabetes Alert Dog (DAD) to assist the family of a 3 year old who has been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. This blog will allow you to follow our progress toward this goal.